


Hell Hath No Fury like a Woman Scorned

by goodgirlwhoshopeful



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: Angry Demelza, Angry Ross, Angst, Arguments, Drunken Ross, F/M, Poor Demelza deserves some justice, Romance, Tension, because the BBC seems to just ignore the fact that Ross can be a twat, just general marital conflict, man and wife, romelza - Freeform, the necklace incident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5641621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgirlwhoshopeful/pseuds/goodgirlwhoshopeful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had not words for the stewing fury she felt in her chest during George Warleggon's ball.<br/>"If you behave like this, you'll not come to another!"<br/>If there was one thing drunken Ross Poldark looked for, it was a fight.<br/>And tonight... Demelza would give him one. </p><p> </p><p>(My take on what, in my opinion, would/should have actually taken place after THAT night at the Warleggons, because Demelza deserves to get some justice...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell Hath No Fury like a Woman Scorned

**Author's Note:**

> My take on what, in my opinion, would/should have actually taken place after THAT night at the Warleggons... (i.e. when Ross is a prize twat. – I say this as affectionately as possible)
> 
> The 2015 BBC version annoys me, because Ross gets off scot free for his arsehole behaviour...and Demelza was uncharacteristically calm and forgiving... In fact, the arsehole things he does are never once mentioned, or apologised for, really, and I pity Demelza for it... 
> 
> So this is my take on that. It is slightly controversial - but I hope you can see that I do so only because I truly think, in keeping with Winston Graham's version of Ross and Demelza, that this is all entirely in keeping with the pairs characterisation. 
> 
> LOVE to all you Poldark peeps.... Let me know what you think. 
> 
> (and yes, I wrote this instead of an essay... again).

  _"She's hot; warming those who respect her and burning those who don't......._ _."_  
**––Steve Maraboli**

* * *

 She had not words for the stewing fury she felt in her chest during George Warleggon's ball.

It bubbled deep beneath her breast and scorned her up into her throat like bile. 

_"If you behave like this, you'll not come to another!"_

His voice had been so cold, so bleak... so unlike the voice she had grown to dream about. His eyes were almost black with drink, rage and self-loathing... She had never been on the receiving end of the infamous Dark Poldark wrath until that day. 

It was... all so unlike Ross...yet so Ross, all at once. 

As he had stalked away back to the green-tables, Demelza had trembled with the urge to storm after him. In that moment, despite the pitch tone of his eyes or the slight slur to his speech or his ridged posture that resembled a threatened predator, she had not been frightened of him – not in the slightest. If anything, she found herself fantasising about the most unladylike of behaviour – drawing up to his height and staring him down, shoving his shoulder even in retaliation. Suddenly, the fire of her temper in her early days during in her kitchen maid turn lady days – much like  _that_ morn when she had leaped on Judd for consuming her pie – returned to her and she had to grit her teeth to bite it back.

When she joined him, she had calmed down, her anger having been pacified by Verity's tears. Though, the moment she had walked behind his chair, she had felt the impulse to run a hand over his shoulders, seeing the despair in his frowning, stoney features, slumped over the green-table. However, when he didn't even tick at her touch, she felt her chest begin to transform into a burning furness again. 

_"My stake in Wheal Leisure."_

If she had not been so bound by her stays and corset, she was sure she'd have fallen form her tense perch on the chair. 

The fire in her stoked threefold, has hurt filled every cavity in her mind, leaving only three words:  _how could he?_

 _"Ross! No!"_ The words left her mouth in a rush, as she leapt forward, yanking her brand new necklace free. 

"Play with this,  _if you must."_

She had hoped that he would read the venomous tone on her tongue and come to his senses; saying  _'No, Demelza. Not your necklace. No more.'_

He did not.

Not only that, but then she discovered it was worth  _'About a hundred'._ (She had almost cried on the spot...for should could never even imagine the sight of a hundred whole gineas...but instead managed to excuse herself afterward to do so in the privacy of one of George's guest rooms). 

She wasn't sure why she was crying – t'wasn't much about the necklace, since, while it was, no doubt, the most beautiful gift her love had ever given, it was not like she lived or cared much for material things. She was not yet such a great lady that she would spill tears over the loss of some ribbon and stones. Instead, she found she cried out her anger – hot and consuming, it made her throat ache. Ross' words replayed over in her mind  _'If you behave like this, you won't come to another'_ and she found she wanted to scream. 

Behave like  _what? Rich_ , she thought, coming the man who spent his entire evening at the gaming tables, drunk and angry, neglecting her altogether while she did nought but attempt to be the greatest lady she could as he had spent their entire marriage transforming her to be. All her  _effort_ , all her  _anxiety_ to be  _good enough_ , all her feeling like a square peck fitting into a round hole... and  _he hadn't even been there to support her._

And the worst part of all? She could not even express the anger she felt, for that was the 'behaviour' to which he referenced in such disapproval. 

 _After all,_  she thought, hotly, her face twisting into a distorted expression as she attempts to mimic the high and mighty sour nature of women such as Ruth Trenagglos.  _Good wives did not disagree with their husbands._  

 _'Tis all a load of ol'_ _codswallop,'_  she whispered harshly to herself, sniffing hard and rubbing the tears away with the backs of her hands, since no one was around to see. She lay back on the chaise and attempted to catch her breath, finally finding peace in the unlit guest room away form all other souls. "P'raps I am not meant for this," she whispered to herself in the still of the room. "I look the part but what is the use if t'was not any fun at all?" 

Suddenly, recalling the darkness in her husbands eyes, she felt lonely. Since that fateful day when they had met, Ross had always been her only protector, her one love... her one true companion... So, tonight, without the security of his warm smile and his strength of mood and character  _on_ _her_ side, she could feel the loss of it, and it frightened her. The world seemed to large and cruel without his warm smile lingering whenever she glanced, unsure, over her shoulder... 

She knew it would not be forever, since the liquor was upon him tonight and had been these last four days, and, after grief had loosened its gloomy grip, he would return to her... But somehow, she knew she would never see him quite so saintly as she had done. 

Tonight, she saw the reckless, disinterested gambler of Ross Poldark's youth...and she was certain she did not like it. 

She felt her breasts, still somewhat heavy with the lingerings of a little milk, tighten against her stays as her thoughts turned to their child, sweet Julia, home at Nampara in Prudie... As a mother, sad and now homesick, she craved to hold her babe; craved to feel warm and safe and  _needed,_ since none a feeling could be less to what she felt now.

 _"D-emelza?"_  The slurred call for her came as the door to her sanctuary sung open, light from the bright hallway spilling into the room. Demelza blinked, well aware that her husband, as bestowed with liquor as he had been when he stormed from the gaming tables, stood in the doorway, unaware of her presence. He had most likely been searching the house for her in his drunken state... and would most likely last little longer. As a result, she cleared her throat in the darkness. 

"What is it, Ross?"

She watched, and desperately attempted to curb laughter, as he squinted for her through the darkness, his eyes yet to accustom to the gloom. 

"Demelza, what in Gods name are you doing, lurking in the dark like some gargoyle?" 

"Dear husband," she began, lying back to look up at the ceiling, "T'was to get away from you."

She was proud of how she managed to keep her voice nonchalant, as it was what she most wished, for it would grate on his nerves. If there was one thing drunken Ross Poldark looked for, it was a fight. 

And tonight... Demelza would give him one. 

He was silent for a long moment after that, letting the door shut as he stepped into the room. She could see his dark silhouette as he attempted not to storm right toward her, lingering against the wall. Despite the distance between them, she knew he was stewing. 

"From  _me?_ On what cause?!" He did not raise his voice, but employed his infamous low growl of a vernacular, during which he spoke through his teeth.

"You know  _perfectly well_  what cause." Her tone matched his now, as she refused to look at him. She could feel her pulse racing, as though she were a child again and acting out against her father.

At such a similarity, she almost leapt up.  _No... Surely not? Not Ross and her father... There nothing alike... were they?_

"This cannot be simply about the gaming. Demelza, you know I––"

"Tis not just the gamin' you... _ignorant_ man! Tis that you keep insistin' on transformin' me t' be something' I'm not! All I have endeav....endeav..." She growled at herself, frustrated she could not form the word.

"Endeavoured," Ross corrected for her. She shot him a look, finding this correction of her nothing short of irrationally irritating in the moment. 

"See! Mark that! 'ee insists on me being this  _great lady_  – dressin' me up, tellin' me to calm my emotions, making' me feel wrong for bein' emotional –" 

" _Demelza!"_ The growl was a warning. She was sat upright and and trembling in her fury. "What are you talking about?!"

"It's like one rule for 'ur kind but another for us!" 

"You are being  _ridiculous––!"_

"I was never good 'nough for you!" Her voice was almost a cry, moving to stand and gesture wildly, sobs rising to disrupt her speech. She grasped at her hair, as it all came back to her:

 _....To be in my house you must be clean, you understand?...._ _....You_ can _no longer be my servant...._

 _....I_ _will not have my_ wife  _wrestling a man servant, it's unbecoming..._ _....There is only one way to remind you you are no longer a servant...._

_....I've no notion of how t'be!...As you are!...An' what am I?...A lady!.... Your place is where I say it is!..._

"All you have done since the day we met...is try to change me..." she breathed, the realisation leaving no breath in her. Her  _beautiful_  Ross, whom she would never wish to change one, single thing about him – not even his  _moods –_ may love her now, for he said so, but suddenly she became all too aware of the reality of before they became close.  That Christmas dinner at Trenwith, he had struggled with their changing relationship. Sometimes, he could not always look her in the eye, and sometimes, just for a moment, she'd catch him looking at her strangely, after they'd cometogetherin his bed, or as she worked in the kitchen, and it would leave her feeling uneasy, but she never knew why.

All those times he tried to make her being a great lady by taking visits to the mine, when he accepted the invitation for Christmas at Trenwith despite her obvious distress... 

_You do her an injustice, and me...to think someone I admire would think badly of you..._

_...Elizabeth was born to be admired..._ Then he'd sniggered at her, even though she had been clearly offended.

Suddenly, like ice down the back of her neck, she suspected she might see it now. 

He had wanted her to be more like  _his_ folk... More like Elizabeth.

"Was it that I'm not Elizabeth? That's it, isn't it?"

Ross' face twisted into an almost disgusted frown of confusion, but she was too sure to see it. "Demelza, I think you have had one too many a brandy."

"Oh,  _Judas!"_ The strangled sob left her. "Y'will not even deny it!"

"How dare you––" He began and she scrunched her eyes shut, knowing exactly the words that were about to meet her ears.  _How dare you?! Jim just died! How can you lie there and say I have no right to be disgusted with these people, while you wined and dined as though they were your kin?! How dare you speak to me as though I am some petulant child!_

"How dare I?!" She could feel her voice getting louder, but no longer had a care for it. "How dare  _you,_ Ross Poldark!  _Never,_ in  _all_ my life, have I  _ever_ felt so neglected! So...mistreated...from someone I trusted to be there for me! I––"

"–– _What?"_ His tone was hurt, outraged, beseeched, all rolled into one. He had neared her now, evidently wanting to see her face. She did not look away form where the moon shone on the ceiling. "You  _dare_ to suggest  _I_ am guilty of the worst mistreatment you have ever known? After how your  _father_ treated you?!––"

"My father never vowed to care for me! I never 'spected loyalty or kindness from no father o' mine! Same cannot be said for what I 'spected from you!"

His voice rose again. "I have never been more  _insulted_ ––" 

She had known she was playing with fire, toying with her fingers too close to the flames...but she could not stop. Months of frustrated could only be bottled for so long. "–– _I_ have never been more insulted! _"_ The words were shrill and hysterical and she knew it. She threw herself into an upright position, hair a frizzing mess from where she had laid on it, and felt angry, hot tears fall from her eyes. Ross' gaze was hot on her skin, urging her to submit like  _a good wife should_ , but she stared him down through the darkness. 

"You're hysterical," he sneered, as though to dismiss her and quit the room. This would be his greatest error, she thought, as it was as though he had poured brandy on an open fire. In that moment, she could have sworn like a cutter. 

"And you're  _drunk_! A damn, drunken fool blinded by his own pride!" 

She watched him halt, mid-step, in his route toward the door. She had never insulted him before; not once in all the days they had known one another, not even when he had Garrick sleep outside. No doubt, it scorned him into a state of disbelief and confusion...  _Good,_ she thought.  _Welcome to the club, Ross._

"This, here, is  _not_  the man I married."

He turned, his chest puffed with a high and mighty gentleman's entitlement, much the same as she remembered seeing in Francis the day he fought with Blamey. "I  _am_  your  _husband,_ Demelza." He was staring her down as though she were George Warleggon, "Your husband whom you  _vowed_ to  _obey..._ You will do well to remember it."

"Or what?" she challenged with a smile, for his anger was so venomous it seemed almost comical. She watched as he nostrils flared, antagonised by her smile. "You'll  _abandon_  me again in a room full of vemon-tongued strangers? Oh... That's right...  _Y'already did that._ " She raised her eyebrows to him, knowing full well he could see her face now, and watched as he struggled not to explode. She thought of all the times that day he had made her feel small, and ridiculous,  _evil_ even,  _just_ for wanting to make the best out of a bad situation.  _Just_ for wanting to go to the ball as they'd planned. 

Truth was, as much as she was in love with him, pledged to him, forever adoring of him...

He charged for her then, throwing the crystal glass away form him – it shattered against the wall beside her, causing her to jump. "Enough, wife! That's  _enough!_   _O_ _r––"_

Suddenly, the words fell from her mouth as though of their own accord. "Or  _what?_  You'll  _strike me?_ Go right on and do it, then! Show me wha' a  _gentleman_ I married!"

 

She never thought he actually would.

She considered that day when the red mist of Ross' anger had been upon him before, the day of Jim's arrest, when he had caught her in his mother's dress... She remembered the way he had ground out his angry words an inch from her face, gripping her arms in painfully strong hands. 

Not even then, when she had been but a kitchen made, did she think he would strike her. 

Her cheek was hot after it happened – her ears ringing from the force of it. Within an instant of his doing it, she swung her own palm and struck him the same; a reflex she could not control. T'was not what a good genteel wife would do, she'd sit and take it, but Demelza had been brought up under the wrath of Thomas Carne... She had learnt long ago to strike back. 

After the violent sound of skin against skin, the room was deathly quiet, other than the pairs aboard breathing. Demelza drew in oxygen as though a fist gripped her throat, her head still turned where the strike had forced it, away from Ross. 

 _D'not cry,_ her mind urged her, just as it had all those years ago after her father had hit her.  _Do. Not. Cry._

Her hand wrung as hot as her face, sore from the roughness of the impact of the stubble on his cheek. Gently, he felt him exhale and almost sob, dropping to his knees before her.

The stared at one another for a pregnant pause. Demelza let tears fall from her eyes without so much as a flinch to brush them away. Ross' chest heaved as his own rage dissipated and left nothing but a hollow space that flooded with guilt. 

"Demelza, my love––"

"Don't." Her voice was little, all her anger gone. Now she just felt wary. 

"I'm so sorry... So very, very sorry... Oh,  _God..._ " His head was in her lap, seeming to struggle to breathe. 

"T'was not just you... I was... I  _wanted_ to make you angry. I said things that I knew would fuel you––"

"––I deserved it." His tone was more like  _her_ Ross now. Deep and sorrowful. "I've been awful to you... Truly." Slowly, he lifted his hands to her face, ghosting his fingers over her hot, red cheek, a mournful sound escaped his throat. "Oh, Demelza... I never meant to strike you.  _Never_  would I.... What a  _monster_  I am... Taking you from your father, only to  _hit_ you myself––"

"––You are  _not_  my father, Ross."

She didn't mention how he had frightened her, for what use was that? Besides, it had been the liquor upon him that made him that way. The black-eyed beast who set her pulse racing... That was not her husband. 

"What you said... Is that truly how you feel?"

She took a deep breath, raising her hands to wipe her eyes. "Yes, Ross. I would not say so, even when angry, unless I meant it."

"I will never forgive myself." His statement was solid, unwavering, and sounded much more like the moral man she had grown to love.

Looking down at her hot palm, she ran her own thumb over it, feeling guilt bubble up in her. "Do not torment yourself, Ross. I brough' 'ee to it––"

"Tis no excuse!––"

"––An' I struck you back!" she assured, noting with a small smile that his curls, though famous for being unruly, were  _everywhere,_ a frizzed crown around his head, falling into his eyes. Gently, she combed them back with her fingers, relieved to see him close his eyes and the gentle touch and not move away. "There was no rightly  _genteel_  behaviour from either of us... So, there's not much use placing blame where we're both at fault... Well,  _that_ , an' liquor."

Ross' fingers remained at her face, his eyes looking over her, less hazed with alcohol than before. "Women... None are created equal." In a submissive tone she had not heard or seen from Ross Poldark before, she watched tearfully as he lower his head to her in a bow. "I meant it, you know...what I said. I  _am_ your humble servant."

"Ross..." she sighed, flushing at his resignation to her. 

"I need you to know something," he murmured, his hands coming to hold both of hers in her lap. She swallowed, recognising the tone as the same he used  _that_ night.  _You have redeemed me._ "You are not Elizabeth; will  _never_ be Elizabeth..." She bristled, attempting to quell the fire that stoked in her at the words. He gaze her a look that said  _let me finish._ "And perhaps it is so; perhaps I did try to change you for want of the love I had fantasised of while I was at war as a younger man. Perhaps that is always what I thought love would be... So, I was confused when I began to... _feel what I feel_ so strongly for you...because...it did not fit the mould I had told myself was love..."

If she had not been able to breath before, she now felt positively faint.  _He was talking!_ Ross Poldark,  _the emotional_ _recluse,_   _was_ talking!  

"But, since that Christmas, that day you sang, laying your heart  _bare_  in that roomful of strangers of whom you were  _terrified,_ _all_ for me... Tis then that I knew it to be love." He lowered his head and kissed her pale hands as they appeared luminous under the light of the moon. "For that is you, Demelza. For you,  _God broke the mould."_

Demelza's tears were falling not half way through his confession, for it touched her more than anything that he had come to realise the error of his ways; come to admit, as much as it  _pained_ her, that she had not been imagining it. He  _had_ craved her to be Elizabeth. 

"Wha' about you, dear Ross?" she challenged with a smile, about to wipe her running nose with her hand, knowing Ross would not mind, only for his to promptly, and most gentlemanly, produce his handkerchief. 

"I?" he asked, too busy wiping her tears away for her; a loving, low motion. 

Suddenly, at the thought, she found she could not halt the most unladylike of giggles. "No one 'breaks the mould' more than 'ee!"

Seeing her point, a grumbling, low chuckle ribbed from somewhere deep in Ross Poldark's chest as he lovingly lay his forehead against her temple. (She tried desperately not to fall victim to palpitations as he nuzzled against her there). She giggles remained, however, as she considered the remark all over again – Ross began to laugh again too, though purely at her mirth. 

"I mean... With that hair!" Suddenly, at the look of such injury on his face, and the utterly  _ridiculous_ state of his curls, she could not contain herself. 

"My  _hair?"_ He dropped her hands instantly and used his fingers to inspect it... then flatten it, (to no avail). "What on earth is wrong with my  _hair?"_

 _"Ha!_ Oh Ross, do stop! I'll  _burst!"_ she cried, hooting with laughter into the fabric of the chaise. 

"Such impudence," he muttered good-naturedly, rooting his backside into the floor, sulking against the chaise, trying to stop himself from smiling. 

"Ah, but I ' _break the mould',_  do I not?'"she teased, ruffling his hair like she used to her brothers. "So, my  _imputence_  is valid." She was incredibly proud of herself for repeating this new word perfectly... as though she knew at all what it meant. 

"I'll giving you  _impudence,"_  he grumbled with a smirk, launching himself over Demelza on the chaise, triggering a girlish squeal from his young wife, and yet more giggles. 

In a moment, they were gone, as his mouth descended on hers with brutal force, all teeth and tongue. The taste of brandy lingered on the kiss, and Demelza was suddenly reminded of their location.

"Ross! No, Ross, we mustn't!"

"Pardon? I cannot hear you. What was that?" Typical of Ross Poldark, his tone with utterly believable, as he carried on his assault, now down her throat.

"Ross!" she hissed...though made little attempt to have him stop.

"I am giving you a lesson in  _impudence,_ my love." His mouth was hot and appealing as sin as he nipped at her collarbone and along, his hand finding purchase at the curve of her hips.

"Damn skirts, hiding my wife from me," he muttered, frustratedly. Demezla smirked at him and raised her eyebrows, an expression she wore instead of speaking the words ' _Serves you right'._

He rose his face to look over her just as she lifted her fingers to ghost them over his jaw.

She marvelled over it most mornings, when he was still abed and utterly at peace with the world; a world he so often was at war with. His usual light dusting of a beard gave shadow and definition to a bone structure already worthy of the sculptures in some of Joshua Poldark's old books in the library. Some days, usually ever second Sabbath day, a day on which he allowed himself a longer rest in their bed – (" _Tis God's day, after all,"_  he'd tease, though she knew full well he believed little in such divinities) – he would be almost completely clean-shaven. The beard, through the days of the working week, would get too long for his liking, so, when he was rushed, he would attempt to trim that which tickled, but on every second Sabbath day, he would use his leisure time to rise early and shave. 

 

For the well-to-do, presenting a clean-shaven face to the world was essential.  Some  gentlemen retained a manservant who had been trained to handle a blade, but by far the  most usual means of obtaining a shave was to visit the local barber. 

Ross, of course, did this little.  _"Pay for a shave when I have two steady hands and mortgage payments to meet? T'would be indulgence, Demelza",_ he'd say.

Usually, after sunrise, he'd settle at the nightstand before the mirror with a basin of water and do it there – since it was lit from the window, offering the best light in the room. He would think she was asleep each time, since she forged it, when in fact she would watch, fascinated, each and every time he went to work at his face.

The careful precision of the razor knife... the way he would roll back his head to reveal the underside of his jaw and the ling column of his throat... She was reminded each time of the power in his body – the sheer  _strength_ of it – and yet his ability to be so precise and graceful; holding a knife to his throat, tending to the horses...embracing their daughter. 

The man before her was a total contradiction...and she would have it no other way.

"What is it?" he questioned, and she realised she much have been staring, her fingers still gliding at a snails pace over him, now slipping under his cravat, as she could feel the vibration of his deep voice under her fingers.

"I'd like to shave you... one morning." The statement was timid, as she felt like her old kitchen-maid self again, on uncertain ground. She held his gaze, watching as it shifted from a look of surprise, to a look of mirth. 

"My wife...eternally breaking the mould indeed." 

Retrieving her hand from his throat, he pressed a kiss to her palm, before playfully scratching her skin with the hair on his chin. 

In the next moment, they shared another kiss – this time tender, slow, considered. She felt Ross sigh into it – a clear sigh of his contentment – and she smiled. She was glad to be a distraction, even if it were just for a small while, from the terrors of the world outside... From the world of corrupt miners, bankers...  _Jim._

"I apologise about your necklace, love," he whispered, shaking his head slightly as his hand pressed to where it lay. "I should have retrieved it when I discovered him cheating... but I did not trust myself to stay amongst them."

At the thought of her necklace again, she frowned, aware this was now the moment she could chastise him for such reckless spending. "I cannot rightly believe you spent the' much! On  _me!_ How foolish, Ross! No' that I was not...almost brought to tears at the thought behind it, not to mention the sight of it––"

"You deserve it all and more, Demelza," he whispered, his tone melancholy again. Gently he kissed her mouth once, feeling like an apology, before moving to stand. "I can see now how it may look to you. Please trust me when I say... I set eyes on those stones and could think of nothing that rivalled their beauty but you... So, in my mind, you had to have it."

He was looking away from her, most likely bashful at such a romantic notion, as was his way, so she gently lay her head against his back, curling her arms around his ribs just for long moment, not to dissimilarly to the way Julia embraced her.

"An' I love 'ee for it...and in spite of the pride made it lose it." He felt her kiss between his shoulder blades and blinked repeated at the emotion rising in him at her almost child-like adoration and affection.  _No,_ he thought with a smile.  _she is most definitely not Elizabeth._

"My pride is my weakness; a trait of the Poldarks that is most inhibiting. We become blind to that which stares us in the face, as I have told you before..." Reaching round his body, he found her hand and gripped it tight. "But there are some things I am not blind to – not anymore – thanks to you."

Swallowing his pride, Ross allowed the furness in his chest to envelope him... though this time, not thanks to rage...but a feeling had had no word for. As they made their way to the door, he opened it and delighted in the adorable expression on Demelza's face as she squinted into the light. He paused in the doorframe, gazing at her half lit features and slender frame in her brand new gown, half simmering its its golden wonder...and he resigned to the burning in his chest, for Demelza was the sun.

"I did not  _fall_ in love with you, Demelza..." He watched her smile begin to slip, so he pressed on. "It was  _not_  as it had been in my youth with Elizabeth." He held her face between his hands. "I  _walked into_ love with you, with my eyes wide  _open_ ,  _choosing_  every step along the way, despite what judgement it may bring to my door. I do believe in fate and destiny..." He cleared his throat, thinking of the day he had had... the awful fate of poor Jim...and his unlawful actions...and how Demelza had been behind him still. His throat remained as though a frog had taken nest there, so he gave her a watery, wobbling smile...for her sake. ""but I also believe we are  _only_  fated to do the things we would have done besides..."

 

He carried on to say words that she could only dream a man as private as Ross Poldark  _could_ say, and they remained with her long after that night.

They went home when the sun rose, wary, but anew, from their disagreement. As they went to lay flowers for Jim, Ross declared to her he was sober, and she feared suddenly he might not remember all they shared when liquor had been so upon him...

Until, that next night, when he had gone off into town for a meeting, she wondered into their bedchamber, only to find a single wildflower beside his razor; his elegant hand lying beside on a torn piece of parchment:

 

_"I believe we are fated to do the things we would choose to do regardless..."_

Smiling through her tears, she held the words, the same words she first heard that drunken night, to her heart. She did so for so long, in fact, that he found her this way when he returned.

_"...And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of heaven and earth... I'd find you, and I'd choose you._

_Your (impudent... but adoring)  
Ross."_

* * *

_"She's hot; warming those who respect her and burning those who don't....._

  
_A weak man will try to dim her luminance...but her soul mate will take pleasure in fanning the blaze."_

  
**––Steve Maraboli**

**Author's Note:**

> I did research on mens shaving in the 18th Century here: https://www.academia.edu/421639/At_the_edge_of_reason_shaving_and_razors_in_18th-century_Britain 
> 
> :)


End file.
